So, samba wasn't installed. I installed it via "yum install samba" and set my workgroup in smb.conf. I think that's progress but it hasn't yet solved my problem. Brian brings up a good point about my lack of a DNS server so I will try to resolve that first.
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Zack The HumanOct 23 '09 at 4:36

Samba has nothing to do with the question, which is about getting the hostname of a real XP box recognized.
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CarlFOct 23 '09 at 4:38

nmbd is part of the samba suite and it is used for NetbIOS in Linux. Therefore if Zack is using NetBIOS/WINS (and if he wasn't he'd know it) Samba is relevant. Whether NetBIOS/WINS should be used is a separate issue.
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NealOct 23 '09 at 9:08

In this case Zack has a working home network (presumably a small number of machines), to which he is adding a Virtual Machine. The VM is having trouble joining the existing infrastructure. The broadcast messages and browser elections are not exactly going to swamp the network: therefore I think that in this case the VM should fit in with the rest of the system. I am not saying that WINS is a good system, and would definitely not use it in a proper network, but I think its use is probably ok in this situation.
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NealOct 23 '09 at 9:11

Installing samba seems to have done the trick. I also took Brian's advice and explored some of the DNS settings of my router, adding a a domain name. I am able to ping varia from friend now. Thanks very much!
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Zack The HumanOct 23 '09 at 16:09

Normally you have a domain in addition to the hostname. The search option will set that so that it will append the default domain to a bare hostname. I'm not sure that's how it works in windows, but that's how Linux and Mac do it.

For example, inside my LAN I use .home as the domain and run a local DNS server that intercepts all .home requests and maps them to local IPs. My /etc/resolv.conf files have search home in them.

Almost has to be this, what is the FQDN for all the machines?
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prestomationOct 23 '09 at 3:54

This is on my home network and I do not have a domain controller (as far as I know). I have three WRT54G routers conntected to each other through the house. Only one of the routers has DHCP enabled as the other routers serve as wireless access points. Could there be a domain I don't know about?
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Zack The HumanOct 23 '09 at 4:01

Ok, that's why you can't ping. You haven't setup DNS. The samba answer may work for you, but really, you should be using DNS style domains not the abomination that Windows tried to create.
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Brian C. LaneOct 23 '09 at 4:16

1

Brian, thank you for your advice. I added a domain name in my router's DNS settings and can ping all of my home PCs using that domain name as a suffix.
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Zack The HumanOct 23 '09 at 16:11

Windows and Linux operating systems work differently with regards to DNS. With DHCP I believe Windows uses WINS and will not recognize the new Linux node. You can add it to your hosts file on Windows if you want or add the IPs to DNS. Also are you sure the machines are on the same subnet? Give nslookupa try.

Thanks for the suggestion, I updated the original question with the nslookup results.
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Zack The HumanOct 23 '09 at 3:13

1

Please try to avoid using WINS, do the world a favor.
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prestomationOct 23 '09 at 3:54

If I disable WINS, what do I use as an alternative?
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Zack The HumanOct 23 '09 at 4:02

From you Question: Server: UnKnown Address: 192.168.1.1 From other comments it looks like this is a WRT54G which I don't believe updates its DNS from DHCP, but it looks like its returning the correct name of your server. Are you running stock firmware on the router?
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prestomationOct 23 '09 at 15:03